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Saturday, September 21, 1912: Ma made over a skirt for me. Got a pair of rubbers today.

From Bedell Company advertisement in November, 1912 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

I guess that Grandma’s mother was trying to save about $1.98 by making over the skirt. I can’t remember the last time I remodeled a skirt . . . or dress. (Actually, I don’t think that I’ve ever remodeled one.) Yet, Grandma and her mother did it regularly.

I fixed over a dress for myself this afternoon. It was one of my Aunt Annie’s cast-offs. I had one trying time a getting the waist and skirt together. I have it fixed now and tried it on to see the result. I’m not so much pleased with my sewing. It seems rather short in the back.

Grandma sounded like she wasn’t very satisfied with either of her remodeling efforts, but she didn’t express any similar qualms about the skirt her mother remodeled. Apparently her mother was more proficient at sewing than she was.

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On September 18, Grandma mentioned walking to school through the rain and mud—hopefully her new rubber overshoes made the trek slightly less arduous the next time it rained.

They probably were more common in areas where the roads weren’t very good–though I recently saw an article in the Wall Street Journal about how some men who work on Wall Street still wear them to protect their expensive shoes.

Hello

I look forward to sharing my grandmother's diary with relatives and friends. Helena Muffly (Swartz) kept a diary from 1911-1914. She was 15 years old when she began this diary. I plan to post these entries one day at a time—exactly 100 years after she wrote them. I hope you enjoy this glimpse back to a slower paced time.

The header is a picture of the farm where my grandmother lived when she wrote this diary. It is located in Northumberland County in central Pennsyvlania about a mile outside of McEwenvsille. My father said that the buildings look similar to what they looked like when he was a child.